I see the same type of comments when it comes to any post on EU tech. What I've found throughout my career is that:
1) Maybe we (EU citizens) are just way less interested in hustle culture compared to other regions. We can keep complaining about regulation and the difficulty of incorporating, but these feel like excuses. Estonia and Portugal come to mind as places where incorporating is practical but not a game-changer. Let's face it: we're just not as interested in launching stuff? We have cushy jobs, with lots of benefits, and launching a business is less required to lead a good life (i.e. we have less inequality ti push against).
2) I've started a company in Belgium of all places. Having worked in Germany for a long time: hey German buddies, it's not the difficulty of starting a business. It's much better over there. Also: deregulating the labor market more would place the majority of us at the mercy of companies a la USA. No, thanks.
3) We're not behind on tech because of the GDPR. Many things in this omnibus are just plain stupid. We should stimulate deeper tech, fundamental research, supporting all the open-source developers we have, and perhaps invest in European structural alternatives. Promote AI? Give me a break.
4) I'm a certified GDPR whatever (2 online courses). It's really not that much of a problem. If you know what data you're collecting and why, your Privacy Policy writes itself. Otherwise you use one of the services that does it for you.
5) Do we have a problem with tech salaries more than a generalised issue with rampant inflation? Because I've never had a single colleague or acquaintance move to the US because of a better salary. Not a single one. On the other hand we're in a parenting group that's full of people that came here to start a family due to the benefits we have. Improving things overall would fight any brain drain more than stimulating tech unicorns.
6) Speaking of which… I'd like to find again the study on the economic tissue of countries. It showed that it's SMEs that employ the most people and pay the bulk of the taxes. Good, decent, boring businesses. We could do less with the nonsensical fantasy of the startup unicorn as a paradigm of entrepreneurship. Okay, I'm sore from having my equity stolen at the last gig, but my point stands. Our parents and grandparents just went to business if they had to. Heck, with the current lack of jobs, many of us will do the same. Let's not pretend that we're missing a startup scene. Berlin was a great place for startups and I can't name a single of the places I've worked that is consequential to anything. Maybe Delivery Hero? But not even that one, they barely made a profit at the time.
Honestly, let's stop whining so much and get yet another sector given the neoliberal deregulation treatment. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but posts complaining about EU regulations at this point feel like karma farming.